MINNEAPOLIS — A former security counselor at the Minnesota Sex Offender Program in Moose Lake will serve a 20-year sentence behind bars after admitting his guilt in a murder that went unsolved for decades.
Matthew Brown, 67, was in a Hennepin County Courtroom Monday, just over 40 years after the fatal stabbing of Robert Miller inside a south Minneapolis apartment.
The prosecution and defense agreed to a 20-year sentence after Brown agreed to plead guilty to 2nd-degree murder, in part to spare his victim's family the pain of having to sit through a trial, and also because a number of important witnesses in the decades-old case have since died.
Brown admitted that on July 19, 1984, he followed a woman he didn't know home from a bar. After watching her go into an apartment on Girard Ave. S in Uptown, Brown cut open a window screen to sneak inside. The woman ran into the bathroom, and when the 32-year-old Miller jumped in to intervene, Brown brutally stabbed him to death.
"I just never thought it would be resolved, you know," said the victim's brother Jim Miller.
Jim was too emotional to read his victim impact statement in court. He says he thinks about Bob every day. His family supports the plea deal and is showing the killer incredible grace.
"I wouldn't dishonor my brother by being angry or behind hateful or having vengeance. He wouldn't like that. He was a gentle soul," Jim said.
Brown did not speak in court other than to affirmatively answer questions from the judge and lawyers.
The only apology came from Senior Assistant County Attorney Patrick Lofton.
"We just want to apologize to the family and the public for this sentence not necessarily reflecting the severity of his conduct," Lofton said. "It’s not based on fairness on what the defendant did. It’s based on a balance of the severity of his conduct with the challenges of proving this case beyond a reasonable doubt."
The case was difficult to solve in 1984 because of its randomness. But Brown left behind blood that Minneapolis Police were eventually able to develop a DNA profile from. Then, after the innovation of genetic geneaology -- building family trees based on information from public DNA websites -- they eventually zeroed-in on Brown.
Brown confessed after being arrested, and further admitted that a lens from a pair of glasses found at the crime scene was his.
But Lofton alluded to the procedural difficulty of trying a case of that age. Several crime scene investigators who handled the evidence have died. Even the Minneapolis cold case investigator that revived the case has passed away.
Nonetheless, Miller's family supports the plea deal and is thankful for the work of police and prosecutors.
KARE 11's Lou Raguse spoke with the victim's brother, Jim Miller, following the sentencing. Miller recalled sharing a bedroom with "Bobby" when the two were younger, and expressed gratitude that Robert got a chance to hold his youngest child on the Fourth of July that year, just weeks before the murder.
Jim Miller says while his brother's violent death has haunted him for decades, he is doing his best to honor Robert by not holding on to hate, as "Bobby" would not have wanted that.
Miller also noted that Brown - who eventually relocated to Moose Lake, where he worked at the Minnesota Sex Offender Program as a security counselor - rebuilt his life with a wife and children while living less than 30 minutes from Miller and his family. Miller added that he knows people who knew Brown and had no idea his brother's killer was so close.
After growing cold over more than three decades, investigators got a breakthrough in the case in 2018 when advances in technology allowed the Minnesota BCA to develop a DNA profile built on blood recovered from the scene at 3209 Girard Ave. S. There were no hits in the nationwide system, but investigators soon consulted with a genealogist and determined that a Minnesota man named Matthew Russell Brown of Barnum was a potential suspect. They were able to collect a DNA sample from a plastic disposable cup Brown used in March of 2023, and the profile matched the blood collected at the murder scene.
Brown, who had relocated to Illinois, was extradited to Minnesota and charged with murder, burglary and assault in Robert Miller's death.